From The Editor | January 25, 2011

Road Trip: LPI Hits The Highway With MW2011

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

Level Platforms believes there is a perfect storm coming in the managed services space — the convergence of market maturity, product maturity, and advancements in IT. To better spread that word, and educate both partners and those other IT solutions providers interested in managed services, the vendor is hitting the road. Level Platforms, a remote monitoring and management vendor, has unveiled an 18-city road show during which it will meet with IT solutions providers to talk about its completely revamped Managed Workplace 2011 product, the impact of IT developments such as cloud, and next-step business advice for a maturing managed services community.

I had the chance to talk with Dan Wensley, VP of partner development for Level Platforms, about this road show before I check it out in person on Feb. 17 in Columbus, and he shared his vision for the event. "You should expect to come out of these events more educated — about the entire IT ecosystem from advancements in managed services software to new levels of integration between managed services software and the rest of the vendor landscape."

He stresses that Level Platforms feels strongly that MW2011 is important to both the industry and its channel partners — well beyond a simple version release. "We see this as an RMM maturity model that is coming from one of the original and established RMM vendors in the market. The hybrid technology in MW2011 was two years in the making, and we think it will have a large impact on the entire market. That is why we want both partners and other IT providers at the events; we want the entire industry to be aware of this new technology."

Those attending should not only expect education about the state of the managed services industry and wholesale changes in IT that are impacting IT solutions providers; they should expect a staple of the managed services industry — the sharing of best practices and ideas. A large portion of that discussion will be led by MSPs presenting at the events: Charles Love, Big Sur Technologies; Jeremy Nelson and Danny Conner, Friendly Computer Systems; Andy Harper, Gaeltek; Sean Furman, STF Consulting; Ed Mana, Technology On Demand; and Todd Schorle, TS TECH Enterprises.

Wensley says he hopes the road shows offer a relief from travel and the cost to business owners of leaving their managed services practice for even a day or two. "We want to take the message to them because we have respect for the time and effort applied by the channel to their businesses every day," says Wensley. "Big industry events are great, but they chew up a lot of time and money, so we took on the burden of travel to allow more solutions providers, especially those who can't afford to be out of the office, to take advantage of this opportunity."

Plus, did I mention the events are free? When's the last time you heard that! If you want to learn more, visit the Level Platforms' event page, but don't wait too long. Wensley says the shows have already eclipsed the vendor's goal of 1,000 registrants, and some venues will be sold out by week's end.